Survival of Mesoamerican Writing Systems

[pa_dutch]

In North America, a Catholic missionary noticed Micmac children writing glyphs in birch bark as a mnemonic device. He turned these glyphs into a full-fledged writing system, which lasted into the 19th Century.

Now, say some Catholic missionaries come along and so the same for the Aztecs, Mayans, and Mixtecs... They manage to maintain the features of these systems that facilitate writing in their respective languages, and improve upon them to make them simpler to write and more effective to use. How would this affect the later history of New Spain and its successor states?

 

[Michael Busch]

I'm not sure it would have much impact. OTL, the closest analog is probably Sequoyah's invention of the Cherokee writing system, and that did not stop the Trail of Tears from happening. The possible line is better preservation of Aztec & Mayan culture, but :

OTL both the Aztecs and the Mayans had their own writing system to begin with, and a large collection of books which were burned by the Spanish very early on. In the case of the Mayans, all but ~4 books and the monument inscriptions were burned, with Church sanction (Bishop de Landa burned a large number on July 12 1562). There are several hundred codices of Nahuatl written in the Latin alphabet from the 16th century in Mexico, so it had also been given an alphabet, even as most pre-Spanish works were burned.

 

[zoomar]

Also, the only Mesoamerican writing system which probably qualified as a true "script" was the Mayan heiroglyphic system, which was a mix of logographic and phonetic/syllabic principles very dependent on the whim of the individual scribe in how things were written, and required considerable contextual background to read accurately. A script based on the latin alphabet would have been so superior as a basic conveyor of mundane information, that it is hard to believe Mayan heiroglyphs would have survived the Contact (except as perhaps a symbolic or elite/religious script) even if the Spanish made no attempt to burn books or eliminate native culture. True, similar logographic/syllabic systems survived European (or Islamic) contact in Asia, but these were mature writing systems used by much more broadly literate societies which were in most respects equal to, or even superior to, the bearers of latin or arabic script.

 

[Michael Busch]

A script based on the latin alphabet would have been so superior as a basic conveyor of mundane information, that it is hard to believe Mayan heiroglyphs would have survived the Contact (except as perhaps a symbolic or elite/religious script) even if the Spanish made no attempt to burn books or eliminate native culture.

This is what happened with Nahuatl - the volume of material written in Latin characters in the 16th & 17th centuries was far larger than the earlier ideographic system. Of course, that didn't stop the language from going almost extinct after a decree by Charles II in 1696. Currently, it has ~1.5 million speakers (Wikipedia has a good article on this).

 

[pa_dutch]

Also, the only Mesoamerican writing system which probably qualified as a true "script" was the Mayan heiroglyphic system, which was a mix of logographic and phonetic/syllabic principles very dependent on the whim of the individual scribe in how things were written, and required considerable contextual background to read accurately.

..Which is why is could perhaps be refined into a viable script by the missionaries. I didn't include the Micmac example for nothing.

 

[Admiral Brown]

I think that the best way to achieve this would be to have native mesoamerican kindoms remain independent after the first contact with the west. If western penetration had been peacefull and gradual (i.e. only merchands and missionaries), Christian missionaries might have been welcomed, as they were in China. Their wisdom and practical skills might have been appreciated, even if their religious ideas might have caused some opposition in the court and among the priests.

It is possible that a missionary might have convinced the Aztec/Tarascan/other Court to reform their writting system. The new system would probably have much more to do with the previous mesoamerican one (at least in the shape of the characters) than with latin scritpt, as reformers wouldn't probably favour the introduction of a totally alien form of script. A new system nort too different from the old one might have been accepted without much opposition of conservative priests.

Another possibility (still in this scenario) could be that the Pochteca, the highly developped Aztec merchant class, invent a simpler system after being in touch wohit western merchants. If contact between both word is gradual, Aztects merchands would be more in contact westerns than the high ranking military and religious elite. The Pochteca, as merchands, might have been the first to see the benefits of this new system, and wouldn't be very concern of the religious implicances reforming the system might cause. There would be to systems: the traditional one, used for inscriptions and for religious purposes, and the reformed one, used by merchants.

If we assume the Aztecs remain independent after the first contact with the west in the XVI century, and that they invent a new system (with or without the help of missionaries), this system might survive even if the empire falls eventually under a western power (i.er, in the late XVIII century). The traditional system might disapear with the destruction of the elite, but the reformed one might survived, used by merchands and writers. It might become a symbol of resistance, and might be adopted by the country once decolonisation occurs. (I'm thinking in Korea, whose reformed system, developped in the XV or XVI century, wasn't widely adopted till the XX century).

 

[Admiral Brown]

If you want a surviving Mesoamerican system after the Conquest (I mean, after the conquest by the Spanish in the early XVI century, as IOTL), it's a bit harder. Others have explain why they thought so. I'll add other possible reasons:

1) Being a very "graphic" system, the missionaries tended to associate inmediatly it's images with aztec religion, Aztec religion with human sacrifice, and human sacrifices with worshipping the devil. If the system had been ideographic but more "abstract" than "figurative" (as the Chinese system), missionaries might have been able to dissociate the symbols from the concepts which had originated them. In that case, if a symbol's design was inspired by the figure of a god, it wouldn't have mattered, as they wouldn't have noticed the link so clearly. But if, let's say, (to give an equivalent example in English) the symbol for the word Thursay is a picture of Thor, it will be hard for the missionnaries to accept the Aztec system.

2) The system was extremly complex. Why would a missionary take the trouble to understand it and reform it to make it viable if it was much sympler to simply introduce the Latin alphabet?

3) The system was used only by the elite, and the elite's way of life was crushed by the conquest. Missionaries took a lot of trouble in learning local languages, because those were the language of the people, and, if they wanted to teach them the basis of the Christian Faith, they needed to do so in languages theywould undertand. If the Mesoamerican writting systems had been much more extended, they would probably have studied them to. But, as things were, it was much simpler to translate fragments of the bible to local languages using Latin script than using the Mesoamerican systems (or a reformed version of them).

 

[Keenir]

..Which is why is could perhaps be refined into a viable script by the missionaries.

probably not. the Pope (or the friars in Mesoamerica), at the time, had declared that the Mesoamerican writing systems, were the work of the Devil.

 

[mishery]

Mayan or such develops a hieratic then a demotic version. Perhaps the demotic version could survive?